Roses
by Starkid191
Summary: What's the first thing Captain America did when they pulled him from the ice? A little something I felt was missing from the end of the film. With SHEILD's computers, you can find anybody. Oneshot, now extended.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: IDNOA(BIWID)**

**What's the first thing Captain America did when they rescued him from the ice? A little something I thought was missing from the end of Captain America. With SHEILD's computers, you can find anyone. **

* * *

Peggy Carter, War Veteran and retired SHEILD operative, sighed. It had been almost seventy years since they'd won the war. But no-one ever mentioned what they lost.

She stopped for a moment, looking around her small flower shop just off 5th. It wasn't much, but after years of chasing criminals and helping develop weapons of mass destruction, it was exactly what she needed.

She looked down as the bell rang and someone entered the shop. She drew herself away from her thoughts and smiled, catching the reflection of the customer in the window. He was tall, well built and blond, dressed simply, but with a certain commanding presence, reminding her if all the young soldiers she'd seen during the war. So many young men, so few survivors.

"Just these." The man said gently, placing a bunch of red roses on the counter.

"For someone special?" she asked, bending down to get the wrapping paper.

"I'll say." he replied. "I met a girl once. She was so beautiful, but I missed our first date. Now I've found her again, and I don't intend to let her go."

She frowned. She was sure she'd heard that voice before. Dismissing the thought, she replied "Well I hope she agrees to go out with you. If you want to put her name and your message on here." she said as she passed him a gift tag.

He took the tag, his hands soft and gentle. She could hear the pen scratching as she ducked under the desk to fine some twine.

Standing back up, she took the tag and looked at it.

"Peggy, huh?" She smiled "Just like me."

"Mmhm" murmured the man.

She froze as she read the rest of the message.

_Hey Peggy_, it read_, I'm gonna need a rain check on that dance. Steve x_

She unfroze, and looked up into Captain Steven Roger's deep blue eyes.

* * *

**Yay! R&R please! I may extend this - with Rogers going to see all the people he once knew. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry this took so long! It's been written for a while, but I had no computer :(**

**And thanks for all the reviews, favourites, and follows! I honestly wasn't expecting so much, but you guys seem to have really enjoyed it. The poll kept drawing, but Steve's parents eventually came out on top. I'll be resetting it, so go vote for who you want next.**

**Enjoy! (and review?)**

* * *

Steve straightened his tie nervously. Peggy had offered to come with him but he'd refused, telling her that this was something he needed to do alone.

He gripped the top of the gate tightly, heart pounding, until it began to crack under the pressure. He released it quickly - he still wasn't used to his new-ish strength.

He hadn't thought before running to his house. After seventy years frozen in ice, all he'd wanted was the warmth and comfort of home. He wanted to walk back in the door, to sit down by the fire and just watch. Drink in the familiar sights and smells and sounds. Look at the old photographs on the mantlepiece.

Of course, he'd have some explaining to do. Where he'd been for the past seventy odd years, why he hadn't aged... Come to think of it, he wasn't sure he'd ever told his parents about the experiment. For all they knew, he'd just disappeared one day, probably run away to war and died in some small insignificant corner of some foreign land.

So it came as a bit of a shock when his key didn't fit the kick of his apartment anymore, and when the door opened to reveal a young woman, the radio blaring in the background, he'd backed away, stammering an excuse, feeling foolish.

After all this time, he still didn't know how to talk to a woman.

He turned and ran before anyone could stop him, running along the main street with its alien sights and sounds. Nothing was familiar, and nothing seemed safe. He was a long dead war hero - but what's a war hero without a war?

He'd spent time adapting, trying to figure out this new, noisy world. He'd found Peggy again and she'd helped him, showed him how things worked. She'd introduced him to her family: her brother, her sister, her niece, her niece's daughter. The young girl had flirted with him until Steve had retreated back into the corner and Peggy. Female attention was _not_ something he was used to.

And slowly, ever so gradually, he'd grown used to this new New York, even if women did wear trousers, and phones were the size of the palm of your hand. He'd begun to realise that when people said 'wireless', they didn't mean radio, and that certain things meant something else now, and that not everybody knew everybody else's name, and that people talking in the street weren't going to stop and say hello, but carry on walking, busy with their own agendas.

Finally, he'd felt ready. Ready to go and explain himself and to sit down and have a nice long chat. He breathed in, out, gripped the gate and pushed. He took a deep breath. He could do this. A war with a man who's face was red and seventy years spent in ice? Surely he could manage his parents.

He stepped through the gate onto the gravel path, flowers and neatly trimmed grass either side. He remembered the place well - it looked just the same. He followed the path, pacing steadily but surely, before stopping and turning.

There, in front of him, just as he remembered, were his parents. He knelt, laying the bouquet that Peggy had given him down on the damp grass.

"Hey mom, hey dad." He whispered. "Long time no see."

The cold granite gravestones offered no answer other than the comforting silence of the dead. Steve Rogers, decorated war hero and son returned, bowed his head in remembrance. Because no matter what had happened in the years since, here, by this church, in front of these stones, he wasn't Captain America. He wasn't a genetically engineered super man. He wasn't even a force for good. He was just a lad from Brooklyn.

And he could do this all day.


End file.
